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Thursday, July 9, 2015

Christmas TV Party 2015: J.A. Morris

1. What Christmas program/movie have you seen more times than any other?
3-way tie, I've seen Rudolph, A Charlie Brown and How The Grinch Stole Christmas every Christmas for as long as I can remember.

2. What is your favorite musical Christmas TV special, variety performance, or holiday song in a movie?
It's
not exactly a variety show, but I would have to go with Darlene
Love's annual performance of 'Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)' on The Late Show With David Letterman.
Love, with excellent seasonal accompaniment by Paul Shaffer and the CBS
Orchestra brought out all stops every Christmas season for most of the
last 30 years. Letterman's show is gone, but thankfully it's easy to
find Love's Christmas performances online. Honorable mention: "Heat
Miser/Snow Miser" from A Year Without A Santa Claus.

Love on Letterman in 2014.

3. What's your favorite TV or movie adaptation of Dickens' A Christmas Carol?
It's more parody than adaptation, but I love Blackadder's Christmas Carol and I quote it year-round.

Blackadder's Christmas Carol (1988) starring Rowan Atkinson.

4. What do you think is the worst Christmas program/movie--or your least favorite, the most disappointing or most overrated?

I grew up reading Marvel Comics and I'm a fan of the 1990s X-Men
animated series. But I was disappointed in their holiday episode "Have
Yourself A Morlock Little Christmas" the only time I watched it. Maybe
I need to give it a second chance.

5. If you were asked to give advice to a TV network executive in charge of holiday programming, what would you suggest?
I'd
like networks to give us more Christmas episodes of action-adventure
and superhero TV series. For example: How about an episode of Agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D. where Hydra plots an evil scheme to "ruin Christmas" and
only S.H.I.E.L.D. can stop them!